Just a few minutes after the logo of National Geographic has been displayed, it becomes clear that we are not in any natural documentation, but in a real Werner-Dzog film. The biologist, ecologist and conservationist Dr. Steve Boyes in the middle of the world -famous Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC alongside a huge prepared elephant named Henry, which is said to have been the greatest specimen of its kind – his skin alone weighs two tons. When Boyes tells of the “biggest elephants in the world”, which was moved by the Hungarian great game hunter Josef J. Fénykövi in 1955, his voice literally overflows with enthusiasm, he gestured, while he is trying again and again while trying to pour the indescribable in sentences.
In Boyes you can immediately see one of these characters, of which Werner Herzog used to tell in feature film form – in “Aguirre, the wrath of God” or “Fitzcarraldo” – before he has increasingly shifted his work into the documentary. He fits seamlessly into the series of volcanicologists (“in the depths of the infernos”), aviation engineers (“The White Diamond”), amateur natural protectionists (“Grizzly Man”) or cave researchers (“The Den of Forgotten Dreams”), which have populated previous documentaries of the director's legend. Driven and obsessive, which have prescribed existence in all of a certain matter, even if they are required, their failure is inevitable or is in danger of their life. Last but not least, Herzog is so interested in her because he recognizes himself in them.
Did the myths of “ghost elephants” actually survive in Angola's unexplored high countries?
The title-enhancing ghost elephants are elephant populations that were decimated by poaching and civil wars to a dramatic extent and whose remaining specimens have settled in the difficult to access, almost uninhabited highlands of Angola. Boyes has been looking for traces of the myths of the myths for ten years-in “Ghost Elephants” his expedition is the focus of the so-called Bié-Plateau, which he undertakes, among other things, with a group of Namibian readers. It is – how could it be otherwise in a film by Werner Herzog – an insane undertaking: after all, the scope of the largely unexplored target area is comparable to the size of England, there are no more than bridges. And so in the course of the mission, as in “Fitzcarraldo”, an entire flux steamer does not have to be led over a mountain, but a whole range of suitcases, utensils and twelve motorcycles have to be moved by flat waters – several times.
Werner Herzog's distinctive voice, deeply murmur and brittle and of course in his very own, deeply characteristic English with a strong Bavarian accent, this time only sounds as a voiceover. While he liked to stage himself as an active participant in previous films such as “Encounters at the end of the world”, he only suggested that this time-for example, if he not only appears as a amazed, loving, also excessive-humorous commentator, but also as an interviewer. Exactly we will probably never find out anyway, since Herzog has always been more interested in (including his own) mythologization than in definitive truths. In addition, at the latest “The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft” showed that the now over 80-year-old director can also create a work from foreign material that bears his handwriting a hundred percent.
An adventure film – and much more
As always in its best documentary work, the actual topic is just a setting for many. The events of “Ghost Elephants” could also be told as an adventure film – and in some cases he also feels like this. But Duke looks and listens above all wherever his interest is awakened. We meet tribes that try to connect with the souls of the animals through hours of ritualized dances. We learn from beetles, whose cocoons separate an immediately deadly poison and hold a session with an African king.
We also see elephants – among other things in actually ghostly nights. In a particularly impressive scene, the camera films bathing elephants, but under water, where its huge legs do a weightless dance with the sand they whirled up. On the one hand, Herzog is about the sensation of a world that is still surrounded by secrets. On the other hand, he takes the spiritual as seriously as it is scientifically verified. And if he observes the everyday life of the Ju/'Hoansi – a sub -group of the San (bush people) in Namibia – he always looks for the connecting. “We are,” he says once.
The elephants actually have something ghostly on the night vision pictures that appear again.
In between, he shows us excerpts from “Africa Addio”, a notorious Italian documentary from 1966, which in the vicarious conflicts in the course of the decay of the colonial order on the African continent and also the killing of elephants through poachers in the brutal detail. The despair about humanity and love for being human are two sides of the same medal in the ultimately humanistic world view of “Ghost Elephants”.
Meanwhile, Boyes has to deal with the question of whether he is really about achieving his goal. “Does it make a difference whether the elephants are a dream or reality?” Asks him once. He prefers the dream, Boyes replies – because so he would always remain alive and his search that has long since become a purpose. Keep your dream alive, never stop looking: In this motto, Herzog's drive is certainly also reflected in the ever-keeper filmmaking.
Conclusion: A documentary that only Werner Duke can make, in which the living director's legend once again fascinates her fascination for figures driven by her dream and the inexhaustible secrets of our world.
We have “Ghosts Elephants” at the Venice Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated his world premiere out of competition on the occasion of the honorary award for Werner Herzog.